~ On stories, old and new

Category Archives: Tales of Thalassia

My dad and I were talking, and he told me that he had done an internet search on me. Specifically, he was hoping to find out more about the name Fiscassia, which I use as my handle on quite a few internet systems. He told me that he was amazed that the name “Fiscassia” only came up with one hit on dogpile. It was a blog that referred to a short story called “How Fiscassia got her name.”

I was pretty surprised at that one. There was no question that it referred to the short story I wrote that is the reason behind why originally started using Fiscassia as my handle. There have been people I have shared the story with over the years, but all I could think of was that the reference was in some long-forgotten blog written by one of my friends from my high school gaming group.

So it turns out that he sent me this link to my namesake… and it is the link to this blog. This conversation happened coincidentally the same day that my writer’s group had been discussing getting short stories published as a way to build an author’s “street cred” in order to increase the likelyhood that an agent would read and respond to novel query letters. It has me thinking that I ought to share the story about “How Fiscassia got her name” with a wider audience. In the meantime, I should at least be able to assure that there will be two hits the next time my dad searches for my handle.

I finished Kelly Link’s book Magic for Beginners today. The short stories in the book are rich with detail and oddity. Sometimes I had to set the book down to get a break between the stories and clear my palate for the next one. Each of the stories dealt with unique “What if’s” and led to some wonderfully imaginative stories. I was initially surprised at some of the language and adult situations in the book because the friend that asked me to read it presented it as being a YA book. There wasn’t a lot of that though.

There are some of the stories I found particularly compelling, like “The Faery handbag” and “Magic for Beginners.” I was amazed by the variety of voices each short story was written in. There were some stories, however, like “Stone Animals” that seemed to drag with the pacing. It sometimes felt like the author was throwing in a lot of weird stuff just because it was weird, but didn’t have a satisfying direction for it. There were a few stories where I found the endings unsatisfying, with too much unresolved by the end. Overall, though, I did enjoy the book.

The friend who recommended it to me did so after hearing me do oral storytelling on a short story I wrote about ‘how Fiscassia got her name’, so I view it as a pretty big compliment that my story made her think of Kelly Link’s work. *Happy Dance*